The preparation of snack foods from potato such as, for example, potato chips, or French fried potatoes, is well known in the art. Various dried potato products are also well known in the art and can be prepared for use in making mashed potatoes and similar foods by mixing them with water. Some dried potato products contain added ingredients such as sodium bisulfite and BHA to preserve color and freshness and also minor amounts of mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids to improve texture. These mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids normally contain the monoglycerides as the principal component and the diglycerides as a minor component, usually less than 10%, as well as a small amount of triglycerides, usually less than 5%. The amounts of these mixtures of mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids sometimes added to dried potato products is very small, usually ranging from 0.5 to 1.50% by weight of the potato.
In raw potatoes the starch granules are ungelatinized. In dehydrated or dried potato products the starch granules are burst and, therefore, are described as "gelatinized".
Heretofore, as described by Potter et al, Bakers Weekly, Feb. 25, 1963, pages 42 and 43, potato snacks have been made on a laboratory scale from the following ingredients:
200 parts by weight of potatoes, steamed 30 minutes PA1 100 parts of potato starch PA1 20 parts of potato flour PA1 5 parts of salt PA1 1 part of karaya gum PA1 19 parts of shortening
The steamed potatoes are mashed in a mechanical mixer for five minutes. The starch, flour, salt and gum are added and mixing is continued for another minute. Shortening is then added and the mixing is continued an additional five minutes. The resulting dough is rolled to 1/16-inch thickness, cut to the desired size and shape, and dried in a forced air dryer at 300.degree. F. for approximately 25 minutes.
From the foregoing description, one skilled in the art would recognize that steaming the raw potatoes would cause gelatinization and it would be assumed that the potato starch and potato flour contained the starch in ungelatinized form. The term "shortening" as used in the art normally refers to triglycerides of fatty acids. Hence, in this composition the amount of shortening by weight of the total starch including the gelatinized and ungelatinized starch would be approximately 6% by weight.
Using the same composition, snack foods in the shape of a scoop have been described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,384,495.
The foregoing products are said to be puffed in various shapes.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,348,417, which alludes to British Pat. No. 1,261,730, describes a product which is referred to as potato crisps made from a mixture of potato flour and potato starch, formed into a dough compressed into flakes and the flakes heated in steam. According to U.S. Pat. No. 4,348,417 a variation of this product is obtained by mixing a composition consisting essentially of starch-containing component, selected from the group consisting of potato flour and potato starch, corn, buckwheat, tapioca, rice flour and soya meals and mixtures thereof, with 5-20% by weight of an active yeast, based on the starch containing component, water and 0.5-5% by weight of sugar, fermentable by yeast, based on the starch containing component and/or 20-100 ppm of enzyme capable of forming such a sugar to form a dough mass, fermenting the dough mass for a period of time and at a temperature sufficient to form a light structure and frying the fermented dough to obtain a crispy snack of light structure.
Japanese Patent Publication 53-5387 describes the manufacture of crackers by mixing, in steam, 100 parts by weight flour, (presumably wheat flour), 50-150 parts by weight dried potato powder, baking bowder, seasoning and water, molding, drying and baking, or frying the product in oil.
According to German Patent Publication No. 27 43 230, published Apr. 5, 1979, a potato crisp product is made of raw potatoes which are cut into small chips, squares or spheres and are blanched at 60.degree.-80.degree. C. in water for a few minutes. Drying in hot air converts these chips into a thin crisp outer shell with a large void inside. The final crisps are coated with flavors and aromas.
According to U.S. Pat. No. 2,705,679, ready-to-eat food products are prepared by feeding diced raw potatoes into the base of a stream of air heated to a temperature from about 120.degree.-160.degree. C., the velocity of the stream being such that the diced raw potatoes are tumbled about and suspended by the air stream whereby they are uniformly expanded into hollow shells by the rapid evaporation of moisture and are further cooked and at least partially dried by the action of the air stream. According to the preferred procedure. the diced potatoes are blanched in boiling water for about one minute before feeding them into the air stream.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,890,697 describes a process of manufacturing food units of hollow globular form by forming a dough of a plurality of cereal flours embodying a puffing starch, dividing the uncooked dough into pellets, cooking the pellets, heating the pellets by drying, steam rolling the pellets while hot to form them into thin flakes, baking the flakes at a moderate temperature to puff or expand them into globular form, then subjecting the resultant puffed unit to a higher temperature to toast them. The preferred cereal flour is wheat flour and the preferred puffing starch is rice flour.
An object of this invention is to provide a new and improved type of puffed snack in which the major essential component is derived from dehydrated potato containing a small amount of mono- and/or diglycerides of fatty acids, with or without the addition of a small amount of hydroxylated lecithin, a small amount of seasoning, and a minor proportion of degermed corn flour, the dehydrated potato having the starch in a gelatinized form and the corn flour, if used, initially having the starch in ungelatinized form.